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EAST LANSING — With each successive game, with each victory, what was previously a curious buzz surrounding Michigan State has steadily grown into a menacing roar.

“People feel like we have an identity,” coach Mark Dantonio said Tuesday. “So which identity do we have? It just depends on the time of day it is, really?”

The Spartans know what they are — and are comfortable with that persona — because their coach is comfortable in his own skin. Dantonio possesses a wry sense of humor that’s admittedly an acquired taste. It’s not that he doesn’t smile or is purposely dour in front of the television cameras.

Dantonio doesn’t really care that much about outside perceptions.

Think he’s boring and dull?

Go ahead. He’s cool with it. But that 57-year-old man happily dancing with his players in the locker room after every victory this season, or successfully rolling the dice with a fake field goal at a critical juncture at Nebraska last week, is in many ways the antithesis of stale and conventional.

Born from that comfort is confidence.

That’s why the Michigan State trick plays work with such regularity. It’s not an exercise in coaching testosterone. It’s not a challenge of one’s manhood. It’s about preparation and calculated risk coming together. And if it doesn’t work, Dantonio can live with the result and move on because he knows that football is always about taking risks.

That’s a self-assured coach.

Jim Schwartz came across as the polar opposite Sunday in Pittsburgh when explaining the Lions’ failed fake field goal that tipped the momentum in the Steelers’ favor. Schwartz voluntarily made the decision about him. Criticize him if you wish. But don’t you dare call him scared. That was a coach unsure about his game-management skills.

I asked Dantonio on Tuesday about what the trick play and its timing reveal about that respective coaching mind-set.

“I think what you’re trying to establish is you’re trying to establish that you’re willing to push everything on the table and risk things,” Dantonio said. “I think that’s a mental toughness. It’s a competitive toughness. I think people respect that. Sometimes it doesn’t work.

“But your players respect that because your players want you to take risks because every time they step onto the field, they’re taking a risk. I think by you doing that, you’re saying I’m going to push it out there for you. If they don’t work, it’s a bad thing.”

But Dantonio always calls it a “calculated risk.”

It’s less of a gamble if you’re extremely confident it will work.

“There’s definitely a comfort level that comes down from the coaches,” said punter Mike Sadler, who took the snap on the fake field goal at Nebraska, made the incorrect initial read but still fought for a 3-yard gain and the first down. “We’re not taking chances because we think that’s the only way we can win the game. We take them because we’ve prepared for them for so long that when the situation comes up in the game, it feels natural. It feels normal.”

The Spartans are seriously contending for the Big Ten championship for the third time in four years — which has become the “new normal” in this conference.

It has been a juggling act for Dantonio, balancing the hunger of the underdog with the swagger of the favorite. Extra attention comes with the victories, as do higher expectations. But the coach comfortable with who he is and what he believes becomes the coach most capable of handling that challenge.